Co-Ops Could Help Solve San Francisco’s Affordable Housing Crisis
November 5, 2021
By Carly Graf, San Francisco Examiner
Co-op housing, having fallen largely to the wayside for decades, is getting a second look in San Francisco as the stubbornly high cost of real estate has displaced working class families, entire communities of color and generations of locals.
More than 40% of people who work in The City can no longer live here, according to a recent report sponsored by a group of local economic justice advocacy groups.One estimate from real estate website Redfin puts the current median price of a single family home at $1.8 million, and, as of October, the median rent in The City for a one-bedroom apartment is $2,395 per month and $2,771 per month for a two-bedroom, based on data from rental company Apartment List.
Cooperative housing — which can offer a less expensive avenue to home ownership — has been a model used to help combat displacement and gentrification in other cities nationwide.
Some co-ops are market rate, meaning the units are priced based on the regular fluctuations of the local real estate economy.
Others are what’s called limited equity housing cooperatives. These are often subsidized by federal, state or local dollars to keep the buy-in price lower for low- and moderate-income earners. They put in a certain amount of money — similar to a down payment — and then pay mortgage payments on the co-op itself. There are limits on resale values and buyer income.
“As an ecosystem and as a way of thinking about housing, both (co-op models) are really important,” said Fernando Marti from Council of Community Housing, a local housing nonprofit.
But when it comes to San Francisco’s intransigent, affordable housing problem, it’s the limited equity co-ops that officials say could prove particularly useful because they keep prices low and reduce barriers to entry for low- and moderate-income earners.
